This blog is about family, including those in my family tree, the primary focus, but also the family of faith, the family of community, and ultimately the family of man. It is a journey of discovery: Who they were, What they did (and Why), and When, Where, and How they lived.

A Thanksgiving Toast To The Old Breed
The late World War II combat veteran and memoirist E. B. Sledge enshrined his generation of fellow Marines as “The Old Breed” in his gripping account of the hellish battle of Okinawa. Now, most of those who fought in World War II are either dead or in their nineties. Much has been written about the disappearance of these members of the Greatest Generation—there are now over 1,000 veterans passing away per day. Of the 16 million who at one time served in the American military during World War II, only about a half-million are still alive. Military historians, of course, lament the loss of their first-hand recollections of battle. The collective memories of these veterans were never systematically recorded and catalogued. Yet even in haphazard fashion, their stories of dropping into Sainte-Mère-Église or surviving a sinking Liberty ship in the frigid North Atlantic have offered correctives about the war otherwise impossible to attain from the data of national archives. More worrisome, however, is that the collective ethos of the World War II generation is fading. It may not have been fully absorbed by the Baby Boomer generation and has not been fully passed on to today’s young adults, the so-called Millennials. While U.S. soldiers proved heroic and lethal in Afghanistan and Iraq, their sacrifices were never commensurately appreciated by the larger culture.

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from Independent SentinelRIGHT BIAS

Government Documents Prove They Were Out to Get the Bundys
The judge in the case against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, his sons, and their friend Ryan Payne, declared a mistrial on the 20th. The reason is stunning. Prosecutors willfully held back evidence of the government agents acting illegally in 2014 during a standoff on the Bundy ranch which drew the attention of militia from around the country. The amount of exculpatory evidence withheld was no less than astounding.